What to look for as Education Committee meets

The Legislature's Education Committee convenes Thursday and Friday at a special meeting in Augusta. The agenda released this afternoon by the Office of Policy and Legal Analysis shows what to expect from such a meeting.

• Education Commissioner Susan Gendron on Thursday will update the committee's 13 members on the precarious financial condition of Maine's education budget. She'll share ideas gleaned from an August 28 session in Augusta when superintendents put forth their ideas for paring back district budgets. Gendron has already shared these items with the Legislature's Appropriations Committee. I'd expect the news to come from firmer reduction recommendations from the Department of Education and a clearer idea how much school districts should prepare to cut out of their current budgets in the coming months.

• University of Maine System Chancellor Richard Pattenaude plans to tell lawmakers what Maine's seven-campus university network has been up to in recent months. That will include a review of Pattenaude's synthesis of three reports prepared for the university system over the past year that recommend major cost-cutting overhauls.

• Lawmakers will hear from Richard DeLorenzo, co-founder of the Re-Inventing Schools Coalition. That's the Alaska-based organization Maine's education department has looked to for aid as the state attempts a transition to standards-based education, a philosophy that drops letter grades in favor of ensuring students achieve set benchmarks before being promoted to the next level. Lawmakers this past spring were skeptical of a bill that would have taken some substantial steps to move Maine in the standards-based direction. They passed the bill, but stripped most of the standards-based language. We'll see what lawmakers' attitudes toward the concept are like a few months later.

• I'm expecting the most interesting discussion to come when Gendron updates Education Committee members on the status of school district consolidation. After broaching the topic while in session this spring, the commissioner and lawmakers will address what a repeal of the consolidation mandate -- it's an option voters have on their November ballot -- could mean for Maine districts.